I downloaded and installed a program called Senuti to copy music from my iPod to my new Mac mini. It worked very well. But I couldn't find the program anywhere in the Applications folder and had to do a search when I wanted to launch it. The next evening when I booted up the mini, the program was gone. A search yielded a plist file in Preferences and an empty folder in Caches.
This was my first ever installation on a Mac, and I'm wondering what I did wrong. When I opened the disk image and clicked inside the window, the program simply started, unlike Windows, which would ask where you wanted the program located. Anyone had any experience of this? Are there programs written only to be used once (which was all I needed Senuti for anyway)? Appreciate any help.

When you open the disk image, you need to drag the icon to where you want it. You are doing something like running it from the zip file instead of installing it._________________Mac mini powered up on 2-11-2005

Thanks nalenb. When I opened the disk image, the window contained no icons as I knew them, only a single graphic of the Senuti program. So would I then have to move the whole window over the hard disk or target folder to install it? Would it be OK to delete the plist and other leftover files/folders from the "failed" installation? Thanks again.

After reading "Great article for new Mac mini users and switchers" in this forum, I'm beginning to understand what you mean, nalenb. I have to drag the icon or graphic to the Applications folder to install a program except for the few that come with a specific installer file. It's going to be quite a learning curve for me, after using Windows for so long.

Yeah, on Windows a single installer has become the norm, although some applications still just have a zip file, or the download itself is the program. By and large though, most have a single program that runs an installer that does everything for you.

On the Mac I've found that the installation is commonly:
1. open the dmg and drag the stuff where you want it - like opening a zip on Windows and doing the extrac - I think TextMate is like this
2. a kind of installer that opens and gives you a dialog that instructs you to drag the icon - I think BBEdit/TextWrangler does this.
3. a full fledged installer that automatically runs when the dmg file is opened

The apps I've tried seem to be evenly distributed among those three, whereas Windows is almost always #3.

One thing I'm still getting used to is dragging. On the Mac almost everything can be dragged from one app to another, etc. On Windows I always look for a menu item, like import or add whereas on OSX you just drag it to the right place._________________Mac mini powered up on 2-11-2005

After downloading again, I opened the disk image and found that I couldn't open another Finder window to drag the icon into. But I clicked the top right button of the disk image window to open the sidebar and dragged it to Applications there. Seems to have worked. Thanks, nalenb, you've been a great help.

I just clicked the Finder in the Dock. I've removed the Macintosh HD from the desktop to get a clean, minimalist look. But I'll remember to put it back on for the next installation. Cheers again, nalenb!